WHY WE NEED TO SUPPORT AND INVEST IN OUR COMMUNITY CANDIDATES

Honest and loyal representation in our community is going to cost money, to sustain, maintain, and grow our communities.

One of the major problems we have in our communities is that we don’t invest in our candidates, and we don’t vote!

Do you know what happens when we don’t supply our support to our candidate/s running for office?

The interest groups, and other people outside our communities, take advantage and take the opportunity to invest, donate, contribute, and support them.

By the time our candidates get elected to office, they no longer belong to our community. The people that invested in them get the goodies and the right to control them.

They got him or her elected — not us!

The next time your local candidate comes to you for help, do the right thing for your people, yourself, and your family:

Register to vote – this is a must in our democracy. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!

Research your candidate, find out about what your candidates stand for, and look at his or her experience with the community.

If you like what you find out, contribute anything you can, $5, $10, $15, etc., and if you can give more, give more.

Spend the word to your friends and family to support your candidate and encourage them to donate what they can to help him, or her get elected.

If you have the time, get involved directly by working with the committee working to get him or her elected. There is so much you can do for the candidate, just by volunteering one to three or four hours per day or for the whole week. The little time you give your candidate can turn out to be a big thing for our community.

If we do all these things, the candidate becomes a product of the community, becomes your candidate, and not of the political machine, not of the outside interest groups.

American politics is very serious, and the sooner we realize it, the sooner we can grow and advance the future of our community — socially, educationally, and economically.

Look at the political principle of this city: “You have to pay to play, and it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

Well folks, let’s stop the political abuse, and let us begin to develop our own “game in the interest of our people, our children, and our youth.

REGISTER, EDUCATE YOURSELF, AND LEARN ABOUT WHO’S WHO IN YOUR COMMUNITY….

Remember, when you say that you’re not interested in politics, that in itself is a political statement. Help, and join those that are working to bring respect and quality representation to your community.

Don’t wait for me to say, “I told you so?”

Too many people in our community complain and cry about government service, but don’t do anything about it.

This year, we find a lot of young and committed individuals running for office, and many of them will not make it to the June Primary, but their energy and spirit will remind us, and we can begin to plant a seed from that effort.

The Buffalo Latino Village has many public statements and even has endorsed independent candidates running against the Democratic machine, and because of that, we have lost some support and advertisement for the publication, but we are willing to take a stand, and sacrifice, because we know that these are things that must be done to develop respect for our community; yes, even if I take a hit.

We are committed to being around for the long run, we are not going anywhere.

This is a rough draft, a work in progress….

Read, review, and share in discussion with your friends and family members.

I came to Buffalo in 1967 to attend UB, and before I left in 1987, I was a man, no longer a student. Yes, from 67-85, I gave it my best to help bring the Puerto Rican/Latino community a respectable standing in the political community. We create many programs and services, many that are around today with a different names, and with different “so-called” founders, who were not around to be founders of anything.

But that is another story.

We just need to grow and develop, we need to be creative, imaginative, and work to make our young people proud of their Puerto Ricans, of their Dominicanism… We must carve out a piece of the action for our community. All other communities have their territory, their commissioners, their elected officials, and their countless businesses.

We too are entitled to have a dream.